The math for builders for teardowns in the Boston area

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If land in the Boston area is expensive, what would a builder need to replace a starter home with to make it worth their time and effort?

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As demand to live in Greater Boston soared and buildable land dwindled, many builders saw starter home properties as a development opportunity, and over the last two decades, neighborhoods once filled with cheaper housing began to transform with teardowns and so-called McMansions.

The math behind that shift is straightforward, said Paul McGovern, owner of Needham-based homebuilding firm McGovern Construction Management. Land prices in Greater Boston, particularly in the close-in suburbs, are incredibly high. When towns require a big parcel for a single house, the price of acquiring the land leads to a far higher overall development cost, which then requires a builder to construct a bigger, more expensive house to make money on the project.

In Needham, where McGovern frequently works, a buildable lot can typically be acquired for around $1.2 million, he said. Construction costs are sky-high right now, and it often costs around $1 million to build a house. It makes little sense then, McGovern said, to build a home on that lot that will sell for $2.4 million. That’s why some builders opt for projects that will sell for between $3 million and $4 million, with significantly better margins but far more expensive than the typical Massachusetts resident can afford.

Three quick thoughts in response:

  1. This math is a little different than some I’ve seen discussed before. When land could be acquired for less and when construction did not cost as much, the resulting teardown home would then be in the $1.5-3 million range with plenty of margin for the builder. But if costs are significantly higher, how many buyers could afford the $3-4 million range? What does that mortgage look like?
  2. This discussion of teardowns is in an article about large minimum lot sizes in some Massachusetts communities. This drives up costs for development and redevelopment. What would the teardown math look like if a buy was able to take that larger lot, subdivide it, and build multiple residential units on the same original land?
  3. The policy change in question – changing lot size requirements for housing – would add some residential units. Here are estimates of how many: “The ballot question campaign has estimated Question 7 would add between 2,200 and 5,700 net new homes in the state annually. But the Tufts University Center for State Policy Analysis pegged the number far lower, somewhere between 350 and 1,200 new homes per year.” This is small change that might slowly add up. What other housing solutions are on the table to go along with this one?

When suburban residents want their “nice town” to remain a “nice town”

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In the last two decades, I have studied the trajectories of a number of suburban communities. There is a common pattern in the paths these suburbs have traveled: even as they have grown and changed, current residents want their suburb to stay the same. Or at least have the same features and character that existed when they moved to the community.

I found another example of this recently in a local history of Lombard, Illinois. After describing decade by decade what had happened in what was first known as Babcock’s Grove, Mildred Robinson Dunning ends The Story of Lombard: 1833-1955 this way:

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So now you have the STORY OF LOMBARD, a conservative suburban community of some 16,000 folk at the end of 1955, neither very rich nor very poor, a town built on gently rolling ground at the top of the ridge between Lake Michigan and the Fox River Valley, twenty miles west from Chicago. It is a dormitory town, a very large percent of its gainfully employed men and women finding employment outside of the town. Walk or drive down its lovely old streets, noting its homelike appearance with its well kept homes and lawns, beautiful shade trees, churches and school, parks and playgrounds. Say a “thank you” to the folk who, with foresight, persistence and patience, have made it the town that it is. It IS a nice town. So much for the past; the future of Lombard is pretty much up to all of us. Let’s keep it a nice town. (62)

These sentiments are not unusual in local histories: the founders were virtuous, the community has slowly grown, and it should continue going the way it has been. There is a hint of major change on the horizon – the population was 9,817 in 1950 while in 1960 it would have 22,561 on its way to a current population of over 44,000 – but Dunning suggests “Let’s keep it a nice town.”

What exactly does this mean? When she was writing, Lombard was not the same place it was in the 1830s and most of the 1840s before the railroad arrived and few people lived there. It was not the same place in 1955 as it was in the 1920s. One way to read this argument is that suburban residents do not want their community to lose the fundamentally attractive suburban features it had. Dunning notes that it is a bedroom community. It has “lovely old streets” with “well kept homes and lawns.” It has amenities for residents to enjoy. The people who lived there cared for it.

Another way to think about this argument is suburban residents fearing change and what might happen. If the community quadruples in size (as Lombard does between 1950 and 1980), does day to day life fundamentally change? Do these bucolic suburban features go away? Who are the new neighbors who will move in? Will Lombard continue to be stable, quiet, conservative?

Suburban communities rarely stay exactly the same for long. External forces and internal decisions push them in different directions. Local leaders and residents have a sense of what they think the community was and what they hope it might be. And it is easy to give in to thinking the suburb had a golden era where it was truly a suburban paradise.

Lombard residents and leaders might very tell today describe their suburb as a “nice town.” How they do so might differ from Dunning as seven decades have passed and Lombard is a larger and different suburban community. They, too, might say that they want Lombard to remain the place that it is rather than becoming something else that they would not like.

When “everyone is chasing water” in the suburbs

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Suburban communities in Arizona are trying to make plans for supplying water in future decades. This could come with significant price hikes:

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To officials, Queen Creek is a model of how to confront the Southwest’s water woes head-on. The city expects to ultimately spend $730 million to tap into faraway groundwater, insulating themselves from drought for decades to come.

But a proposed “water resource fee” to fund the project has brought furious pushback from the highest water users in town, in a conservative place where leaders pride themselves on lowering taxes. It’s also renewed long-standing tensions over whether Queen Creek is expanding too fast for its resources, as city officials say they expect their population to nearly double by around 2050.

Other Southwest metropolises are facing similar questions about how to keep growing in arid places where water is scarce and getting more so. Arizona’s desert cities are in an especially tough position because they hold more junior water rights than other cities that draw on the Colorado River, such as Los Angeles, Las Vegas and San Diego…

The average single-family home would pay an extra $57 or $138 a month once the water fee is fully phased in, officials said, depending on the details of their usage…

Incorporated in 1989 as an agricultural community of just a couple thousand people, the city’s population has grown to about 90,000, and the water issue stoked doubts among some longtime residents that the rapid change was good for them and the town.

Rapid suburban growth presents a particular set of challenges, including establishing local infrastructure that can meet the current and future needs of the community. Water is essential to daily life but is not as easy to secure in some places compared to others.

While it sounds like current residents and officials are wrestling with how to pay for current and future needs, what might this do to forecasted suburban growth? Would a community turn down growth because of not having enough water? Or would people attracted by cheaper housing here say no to a house because of water prices or water uncertainty? Would growth in a metropolitan region significantly shift toward communities that have secured future water and prices?

This applies to water in Arizona but it might also apply to other community needs. If gas and electricity prices are higher because of power needs and grid concerns. If prices suddenly spike for constructing roads, bridges, and highways. A need for internet equipment but that material is not available. And so on.

The bigger picture issue might be this: the price of a house is important for Americans. This story discusses water and hints that the monthly costs of owning a home might significantly increase. For these homeowners in Arizona, can they predict water prices five or ten years down the road? The house might look reasonable now but utility bills can cause a lot of people problems.

“In effect, drivers faced a rush hour that lasted all day long”

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Add years of construction to an already congested Chicago highway and this is what it adds up to:

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The analysis showed exactly how much the roadwork wreaked havoc with Kennedy commute times. Often, the kind of congestion you normally would expect only during rush hour was seen from early in the morning right on through evening.

In the nearly two decades prior to the start of the Kennedy rehab project, 4 p.m. was the peak hour for outbound traffic on weekday afternoons, averaging roughly 39 minutes. And 8 a.m. was historically the peak hour for inbound traffic on weekday mornings, averaging about 46 minutes.

Compare that to the traffic times on the Kennedy in June 2025, when outbound drivers faced an average drive of more than 50 minutes for every hour from 7 a.m. until 8 p.m. on weekdays. In effect, drivers faced a rush hour that lasted all day long.

Traffic patterns were already trending this way in many places. More drivers on the road at different times of days has scrambled some traffic patterns, extending or moving times of day with heavier congestion.

Add construction projects that last for years and rush hour lasted from 7 AM to 8 PM. For those who suggested that employers could shift work times to help employees avoid typical rush houses, this does not help. How many people can leave the house before 7 AM or head home after 8 PM? How often do mass transit schedules help out at these earlier and later times?

Would a thorough report like this be enough to help move people and policies toward less driving? Imagine a commuter living northwest of the Loop – from the city out to Elgin and McHenry – who can have multiple good options for traveling along this corridor.

Beyond Halloween, what would make a suburban home spooky to the neighbors

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Inspired by seeing this request for photos of the spookiest house on the block, I thought of ways a suburban house could be spooky all year round. And by spooky I mean a threat to property values in the eyes of the neighbors. Here are some ways:

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-Don’t maintain the lawn and front yard. Long grass. Large weeds. Overgrown bushes. The backyard is more hidden so it might escape scrutiny. The front yard will be seen by everyone driving or walking by.

-Paint the house a bright and/or unusual color. Be way out of the ordinary in the color palette. Stand out. High contrast between the main color and the trim. Make people take notice.

-Leave the trash and recycling cans in a very visible location. Don’t put them away or screen them from public view. Remind everyone that the house generates refuse and recycling.

-Have holiday decorations up and on all year round. It is fun at the holiday season but keep the Christmas or Thanksgiving or Halloween or July 4th or big game decor up all the time. Have those red and green lights twinkling in late April.

-Park an unattractive vehicle or one clearly needing repair in the driveway for a long time. Let it sit without any positive changes.

I have seen some macabre Halloween yard scenes but these examples above might bother residents more. They are partly why so many Americans are willing to live in neighborhoods with HOA’s. Let a quasi-governmental body regulate these matters. Determine the exterior colors, make sure garbage cans are put away, have guidelines about landscaping, decorations, and driveways. Or some of these might fall under local ordinances, such as the height of the grass before it will be cut by a municipality with the bill going to the property owner.

Could such a scene I described above win a spooky Halloween house competition? Probably not as people like their Halloween decorations. But ask American homeowners what they would truly consider spooky and I suspect the answers would go beyond Halloween.

Local regulations, small stores, and parking at Trader Joe’s

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Why can it be hard to park at Trader Joe’s? Here is one answer:

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Because, at least there, local zoning ordinances for parking nicely matched demand. In short, Trader Joe’s have smaller-than-usual parking lots because they prefer smaller-than-average stores. According to a company spokesperson, every Trader Joe’s in the Chicago area is intended to be unique, but in general, they average 8,000 to 12,000 square feet of floor space. For comparison, many Jewel-Osco locations offer around 50,000 square feet. This matters because, in most cities and towns, commercial parking is zoned according to business size. For instance, the city of Chicago requires about 2.5 to 5 spaces for every 1,000 feet of store, depending on the type of shop. There are, of course, exceptions, so many that critics complain that zoning for parking can seem arbitrary.

“Sometimes the standard is square feet, sometimes it’s another metric,” said Alex Montero, chairperson of Strong Towns Chicago, the local chapter of a national group that advocates for livable, walkable cities. “A bowling alley might require a certain number of parking spaces per bowling lane. And the thing is, there’s a tendency everywhere — this is a universal problem — to overestimate the problem. Why? Because every politician has had the frustration of not being able to park next to the front door.”

A Trader Joe’s spokesperson declined to comment directly on its parking lots, but rather directed me to a podcast hosted by a pair of its marketing executives, who said they have heard the whispers, the claims that their parking lots are part of a conspiracy to drive people insane — but, look, their stores are small, and that brings bureaucratic standards.

This reminds me of some of the suburban debates about parking at businesses that took place during the postwar era. Businesses located in traditional downtowns – think Main Street and a few surrounding blocks with two to three story buildings – went back and forth about parking meters and ways to make sure shoppers could find parking (and also figure out where employees could park). But as they debated, new strip malls and shopping malls were opening up all over the landscape with plentiful free parking. A comparison to the big box stores and shopping malls today make any small and crowded parking lot look unpleasant. (How about a companion article about trying to find a spot at Trader Joe’s at the busiest times versus finding a spot at Costco at the busiest times?)

If I am reading between the lines of the story cited above, the real issue is that most shoppers at Trader Joe’s are driving their own vehicle there. They might come with a few family members or friends but if everyone is coming in a vehicle and doing their shopping when others are shopping, parking can be tight. Using mass transit or walking to a nearby grocery store might be doable for some but is either not practical or not possible or not imaginable for many others. Trader Joe’s may be smaller in footprint and have its own approach to selling groceries but it is still subject to American driving culture and infrastructure.

Trying to expand bus service in the Chicago suburbs

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Pace has a new plan under consideration that would make bus service more plentiful in the Chicago metropolitan region:

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A 50% overall spike in bus service across the region is among the promises in Pace’s ambitious ReVision plan…

“Travel patterns have changed, and fewer people commute downtown every day. Public input and ridership trends show growing demand for nontraditional transit trips — and when we increase frequency and make our service faster, ridership grows.”

The aim is to increase ridership with more frequent buses and reduction of transit deserts in far-flung communities from rural McHenry to south suburban Cook counties…

Another priority is 50% growth on fixed routes, Pace Pulse lines on corridors like the Dempster Street Line and Cermak/22nd Street Line, as well as On-Demand service.

Given the difficulties bus service has faced in the Chicago suburbs for decades, here is what I could image would provide hope for increased ridership:

  1. Increased suburban densities. Suburban areas sprawl out from the city but a number of suburban population centers in the Chicago region have pursued denser development in their downtowns and other locations. Buses could link some of these job and residence centers where driving is currently the only option.
  2. High gas prices. When would suburbanites find it too expensive to drive everywhere and instead take advantages of bus routes when they could? It might require really expensive gasoline.
  3. A changing view of buses and mass transit compared to drive. Americans tend to drive when they have the resources to do so. They like the freedom driving offers and prefer not to be with others. Could bus travel have a higher status in the suburbs?
  4. Increasingly bad traffic. More residents and more vehicles on the road could push people to mass transit.

And the article notes that this is possible because of funding created through the creation of the Northern Illinois Transportation Authority.

Driving is so part of American suburban life that it will be interesting to see if this expanded bus service is successful. Suburbs change – but will they change in such a way that bus travel becomes common?

The dueling TV and film production centers in the United States

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Was the latest movie or television show you watched made in Hollywood or New York City?

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While California kept its crown at No. 1 with $1.76 billion in movie and TV production spend, New York is drawing major titles at a much more rapid pace, according to industry tracker ProdPro’s closely-watched quarterly snapshot released on Thursday. The state surged 87 percent in production spend in the quarter to $1.61 billion compared with California’s 17 percent uptick.

Bulked up soundstage infrastructure, a large crewmember union base, easier access to neighboring Tri-State locations are all adding up for New York. Take Universal Pictures’ Miami Vice: 85 as a case study. The Michael B. Jordan and Austin Butler neo-noir actioner has been filming in the Empire State as well as Wayne, New Jersey along with its namesake locations in Florida.

New York also has what all states covet, and what California has been losing: scripted TV shows that run for seasons and seasons, often in the same soundstages. And inventory for soundstages has grown 43 percent in the state since 2020 with a boom in purpose-built facilities, per real estate services giant CBRE, which added in a June report that the state is “better positioned for recovery than some competitor markets” after studio belt-tightening on overall content spending…

And we haven’t even talked about New Jersey yet, aka Hollywood East, which is emerging as a major player in its own right and has arguably been the biggest growth hub over the past year in production. The state bestowed Netflix, Paramount and Lionsgate as studio partners, which have conferred a series of incentives to produce titles there. And it has been reaping the benefits. Of late, Netflix’s Kevin Hart-Henry Cavill actioner Spy Duo and Adam Sandler’s Grown Ups 3 have been filming in Monmouth County, while series like Cupertino (CBS) and Dan Levy’s Big Mistakes (Netflix) shot in-state.

Both cities have been major media centers for decades. Hollywood has the reputation for being the place where TV and movie dreams are made, where a combination of stars and weather and settings and production infrastructure and booming populations leads to narratives that shape imaginations and discussions.

Some of this is easy for viewers to see on screen if you know where to look. You can examine establishing shots or common sets or certain local features that keep popping up. I saw one the other day on a commercial as I had stood on almost exactly the same spot while touring a Hollywood backlot.

Some of it is hard to know. Many scenes are set in generic places that could stand in for almost anywhere. Unless there are particular local clues (trees, architecture, etc.), a New Jersey suburb could stand in for a community in the Pacific Northwest or the South.

What might be interesting to see is how New York City could play up its TV and film production in the same way Hollywood does. What would it take for people to want to go tour New York City area backlots? Or take bus tours of where the stars live? Or have something like the Hollywood Walk of Fame? Perhaps this is not needed in New York City in the same way given the city’s different economy (finance! Wall Street! international business!) and history.

Considering the total cost of the American Dream

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How much money does a resident of the United States need to achieve all of the American Dream? Investopedia released a new estimate last week:

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Eight common milestones – buying a house, buying a car, having two children and sending them to college, having a wedding, retiring, paying for heathcare, owning pets, and vacationing once a year – now costs the average American a staggering $5.3 million…

Owning a home is now the most costly pillar of the American dream, the median price of a single-family home totaling to more than $420,000 and a 30-year mortgage averaging at 6.32 percent, the report found…

Owning a car is the second-biggest cost, the study showed. Keeping two cars costs about $1.2 million, which includes insurance, maintenance, registration and fuel for 15,000 miles per year. 

On one hand, the total number is helpful information. The headline figure is sure to catch attention: $5.3 million?! How many people could afford this? Houses and cars are expensive, even if Americans think they should aspire to own a home and multiple vehicles.

At the same time, Investopedia notes that this figure is for a lifetime. It may be more useful to look at incomes in comparison to this total cost:

A single paycheck won’t come close to covering it. A full-time worker with a bachelor’s degree earns a median of about $3.6 million from age 25 to 64, according to Investopedia’s analysis of Census Bureau data, which doesn’t account for income taxes. Add 20 years of the average Social Security retirement benefit, $2,071 a month, and that worker reaches about $4.1 million, roughly $1.2 million short of the American Dream.

So why not lead with something like “Estimated American earnings for a lifetime not keeping up with costs for the American Dream”? Not as enticing a headline but keeping in mind that these are estimates and summary data, this headline might be more helpful to people. They might think: “If I have a typical job after getting a college degree, I may have to revise how much of the American Dream I could have or find ways to save money or ways to generate more income.”

Thinking about the numbers and beyond could lead to productive conversations about what American Dream is possible or how to help more people reach the American Dream they might be expecting.

Surprised by nature in suburban settings, two recent examples

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Nature does exist in suburbia though it may present itself in surprising ways. Here are two recent experiences I had:

  1. Mowing the lawn and finding some sort of animal hide with fur in the grass that I needed to mow around. It was not large but it was one piece. I see animals around, often in the early morning or at dusk. This includes rabbits and a fox. We have plenty of birds within view including cardinals, woodpeckers, mourning doves, egrets, ducks, geese, owls, and hawks. I have seen plenty of feathers. If I had to guess, this was a rabbit that was recently attached by a bird of prey or larger animal. The only remains I saw involved the hide. This is a part of nature not often visible in suburbs though animals need to eat.
  2. Playing miniature golf at a course surrounded by trees, bushes, grass, and some water features. While walking the course, we saw something animal-like on the ground. It was not moving. But then we bent down to look and saw that it was a small turtle. He scurried away from the mulch to other nearby settings. See the picture below. Our mini-golf round continued after the turtle interruption.

I thought nature in the suburbs was supposed to be tame, green and growing, clearly enhancing the value of the human-made dwelling nearby. These two experiences were reminders of the nature that actually exists within suburban settings, sometimes in spite of or taking advantage of human activity.